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The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation ( Basic Books )
Release Date: 2003-01
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List Price: $9.95
Price: $9.95
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Product Description
From the editors at the world-renowned Associated Press, a guide to the proper use of punctuation--from the apostrophe to the semicolon. More people write for the Associated Press than for any other news service, and more writers take their style and word-usage cues from this world-famous institution than from any other journalism source. In the no-nonsense, authoritative tradition of the best-selling AP Stylebook, the top editors at the AP have now written the definitive guide to punctuation. From the when and how of the ampersand to the rules for dashes, slashes, and brackets; from the correct moment for the overused exclamation point to the rules of engagement for the semicolon, The AP Guide to Punctuation is an invaluable and easy-to-use guide to the most important aspect of clear and persuasive writing.
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 Abysmal. ( dgdixon )
Cappon's book is sloppy, rushed, and incomplete. I can't recommend it to anyone.
The same Pope quotation is trotted out twice (p. 34 & p. 76), the second time clumsily, and both times Cappon renders it incorrectly.
Page 40's entry on commas in series includes a misspelling ("stuf") and a violation of the rule covering capitalization after a colon (which can be found on p. 28).
The "Hands Off" warning from the chapter on quotation marks is dogmatic about handling speech in its raw form: "Grammatical and other errors are the speaker's problems, not yours." Yet what practicing journalist transcribes every "um," "uh," and false start the recorder captures?
When a book that purports to help writers offers more in the way of hindrance--and can't trouble itself to take its own advice--it can only be judged a failure.
This is another post-Strunk & White writing guide that prizes brevity over clarity and cuteness over completeness. If the AP wants a useful punctuation guide, it should start from scratch.
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Informative ( homezone97 )
If your in a rush to write an article, this book will help you out.
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 Extremely helpful
Any writer should have this at their desk at all times. This book made me more comfortable with the semicolon.
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The gold standard
For journalists, the AP style guides are pretty much the gold standard (or silver, depending on your economic policy leanings). With so much terrible grammar and punctuation, and often lack of punctuation, present in today's world, this is a must-have for aspiring writers, especially journalists.
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Decent reference
There's no mystery here, and it's not intended to be a grammatically pristene work of art. It is, after all, a 96-page reference manual. If you are used to writing/editing literary and academic styles and need to refresh your memory on the punctuation variables in journalistic writing, this is an easy point-to reference that won't take up any more of your precious time than absolutely necessary.
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